In conventional printing services, printing is performed upon a user transmitting a print job directly to a printing apparatus from a client terminal, such as a personal computer (PC).
Meanwhile, in recent years, cloud-based printing services on the Internet, such as Google® Cloud Print envisaged by Google Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., United States, have been proposed.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a processing sequence of Google® Cloud Print. It is assumed that a printing apparatus 1010 supports Google® Cloud Print functions, and a client terminal 1000 supports Google® Cloud Print client functions. A cloud-based printing service 1020 represents a cloud-based printing service on the Internet.
The user first transmits a cloud-based print service registration request 1110 from the client terminal 1000 to the printing apparatus 1010. The registration request 1110 includes a user ID that is information that identifies a user who is requesting the service. Upon receiving the registration request 1110, the printing apparatus 1010 transmits a cloud-based printing service registration request 1120 to the cloud-based printing service 1020. The cloud-based printing service registration request 1120 includes the user ID included in the registration request 1110 from the client terminal 1000, and a unique printer ID of the printing apparatus 1010. Upon receiving the registration request 1120 from the printing apparatus 1010, the cloud-based printing service 1020 associates the user ID and the printer ID included in the registration request 1120 with each other, and registers the printing apparatus 1010 as a printing apparatus that can execute Google® Cloud Print. Then, the cloud-based printing service 1020 returns the result of registration to the printing apparatus 1010, using a cloud-based printing service registration response 1130. Upon receiving the response 1130, the printing apparatus 1010 returns the contents of the response 1130, in the form of a cloud-based printing service registration response 1140, to the client terminal 1000. Upon receiving the response 1140, the client terminal 1000 recognizes the printing apparatus 1010 as a printing apparatus that can execute Google® Cloud Print.
Next, the user transmits print data 1150 to a logical printer for the cloud-based printing service 1020 that corresponds to the printing apparatus 1010. In response, the cloud-based printing service 1020 converts the print data 1150 thus received into print data 1160 that is formatted to be executable by the printing apparatus 1010. Then, the cloud-based printing service 1020 transmits the print data 1160 thus converted to the printing apparatus 1010, and, in response, the printing apparatus 1010 executes printing based on the print data 1160 thus received. U.S. Pat. No. 8,867,070 discloses the configuration of the above-described cloud-based printing service.
Usually, administrator authority functions are set to a printing apparatus, and such a printing apparatus is managed by being set up to allow only administrators to change the settings of the printing apparatus (e.g. ON/OFF settings of various print protocols that include cloud-based printing service functions). In the case of a printing apparatus that has been set up in such a manner, a user is requested to log in to the printing apparatus as an administrator upon the user making an attempt to change a setting among various settings of the printing apparatus from a user interface (UI).
According to the technology disclosed in the above-described U.S. Pat. No. 8,867,070, however, upon a printing apparatus receiving a cloud-based printing service registration request from a client terminal, the printing apparatus immediately transmits a registration request to the cloud-based printing service on the Internet, and the printing apparatus is thus registered to the service. Such a configuration allows non-administrators to execute registration to the cloud-based printing service, and causes inconsistency with a policy related to the setting change of the printing apparatus.
An object of the present invention is to solve the problem in the above-described conventional technology.